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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story about someone trying to paint (or otherwise create) a self-portrait.

Posted in Character on Nov 17, 2023

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✍️ 66 stories

“Millennia of Mirrors” by Chrissy Cook

Submitted to Contest #225

It had been a long time since her old friend had visited her. Usually, it was Blessing that did the visiting. The emphysema had stopped that quick enough. These days, Blessing only saw Pleasant Drive from outside the curtain-framed window: its pedestrians on sunny days, usually hearses at least once a week. Still, life could be worse at Saint Cyprian’s Hospice; Thursdays meant Zuzanna’s shift, which inevitably lead to illicit cookies, and Sundays brought her weekly visits from Father Peter with his air-light voice and his treasured ukulele. ...

15 comments 15
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“Rorrim ” by Grace Ray

Submitted to Contest #225

It's been months since I last picked up a brush. Seven months, in fact. Seven months gone whirring by like a montage of sunsets over a riverbank. Seven months since I was in America, with Julia. Seven months since I was in love so deep in consumed me; until I ended it. Now I've confined myself to a hotel room in the Netherlands, watching snow fall beyond the aged yellow curtains from a musty twin bed. The view was bleary, and I couldn't tell if the distortion was from the thickness of the windowpanes or the fog behind my eyes. Time...

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“A Portrait of the Sketch Artist as a Young Man” by Warren Keen

Submitted to Contest #225

He couldn’t care less about catching criminals, but there wasn’t much else for an art school dropout to do around here. He snickered at the thought of having “artist” in his job title. Not once did he ever envision having a piece hung up in some gallery. He only went to art school to piss off his dad. As a kid he drew to distract himself from the fact that he was distracted. As a teenager he drew girls to get girls. That’s why all the criminals he sketched had feminine eyes. He could never figure out how to draw a man’s eyes. When they cam...

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“Burnout” by Sabrina Hauer

Submitted to Contest #225

Not again... Anna’s hand tightened around a paint-stained brush. Before her stared an angry red face with splotches resembling burns. The urge to stab the image bubbled up from inside her. “Everything alright?” Came a voice next to her.Anna faced a young woman whose borrow was furrowed. A brush daintily dangled between her paint-stained fingers. “Oh, yeah, it’s just...” her voice trailed off as she stole a glimpse of the canvas in-front of the other woman. It was almost as if someone had placed a mirror in-front of her, h...

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“Lan McHugh Lived a Good Life” by Paul Crehan

Submitted to Contest #225

[NOTE: Burn victim imagery]                                  Lan McHugh Lived a Good Life                            by Paul Crehan Professor Roth said to the class, “For your final, you’re to create a self-portra...

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“The Muse” by Logan Baugh

Submitted to Contest #225

"Let me check. Four room two-bathroom. Plenty of space and some original brickwork.", the realtor said, holding an iPad with its screen gleaming beneath a spiderweb of cracks. Bill ran his hand across the exposed studio brick walls and knocked a foot on the creaking hardwood that made a dense thump. A view out the three big-eyed windows in the living room stared at a congested parking lot of a shopping mall. Behind the mall, straddling the edge of a shopping center was a blank strip of dead and dying shrubbery, a godsend for some dog ready t...

2 comments 2
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“Captured” by JJ Piggott

Submitted to Contest #225

Note: Mention of death. The camera and lights were set up. I was ready to finally begin and finish this project being my self-portrait. My school’s art program opened up the category in the contest letting us students “create ourselves”. There was a one hundred dollar cash prize involved for each category. The idea sounded so refreshing to me. Art or not, I’d love to create myself—or re-create myself. I had one major flaw that I would like to be set free from. It made me feel incomplete, like there was one piece of the puzzle missing from ...

8 comments 8
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“Blue Strokes and Broken Shelves” by Madeline Honig

Submitted to Contest #225

“Why does my nose look crooked?  Is my nose that crooked in real life?  Or can I not paint?  Or both?  Do I have a crooked nose and I can’t paint?  I should just kill myself now.”  Flora looked at the painted canvas in front of her, moving her head side to side as though the nose would look better at a different angle. “Relax.  It’s fine.  You need a break.  You have been at this all morning.” Ollie said.  He closed the newspaper in his lap, leaving a thumb on the article he was reading so ...

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“Brushstrokes of Identity: A Portrait Beyond the Scar” by Leilaine Mori

Submitted to Contest #225

A shattered mirror. It was through it the last time he saw his image. In his parents’ house. While they were still alive. He lost their parents when he was 5. His father had a discussion with his mother, and stabbed her, and after this, he killed himself. But this was long time ago. Different than what everyone expected, he considered himself happy, or as happy as any person, with the ups and downs, of course. When he was young, he used to wake up during the dawn pondering about how it would be his life if they were alive, or if he had paren...

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“The Master's Piece” by Dhruv Srivastava

Submitted to Contest #225

On my life I swore to do this, and on my life shall it be done… no matter the cost.  My butler came into my chamber today.  “You have not eaten in three days, sir,” said he with a trace of British pompousness behind his lackluster concern, “and I can see the jug of water just filled yesterday is gathering dust. The only change in its liquid level seems to be of evaporation.”  “I’m fine, David,” I replied crossly. My left hand was gracefully tracing the outlines of a familiar shape on the canvas before me. My other hand was ...

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“Altered” by C.E. Simon

Submitted to Contest #225

TRIGGER WARNING: Contains language, sexual themes, objectification/sexualization of women, stalking. When I woke up, the painting was destroyed. The face, distorted—mutated, uneven, scars, defects—as if it was melting down the canvas. My face. This was not the self-portrait I painted. I did not vandalize this, but I am going to find out who did. # Being an artist isn’t enough anymore. Maybe it never really was. Everyone gets caught up in “fandom” and stops making decisions for themselves. It’s like with wine: in a blind test taste—wit...

2 comments 2
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“The Bolverases” by John Jenkins

Submitted to Contest #225

“No way, man,” said Shempert. “This isn’t working.” Shempert had been slaving for months, years almost, trying to finish his self-portrait. He’d tried and given up a dozen times, at least, never knowing how close he came to realizing his dream. “What’s blocking me?” said Shempert. “What’s missing? I’ve been doing this forever.” Shempert picked up a cup of what he assumed was water and began to drink. Paint thinner again. He spit it out. For a while, he just stood there and looked at the picture. “I can’t figure you out. What is it? What is...

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“Taking Back My Self” by Hunner Ricketts

Submitted to Contest #225

**Disclaimer: deals with the distribution of sexual content without consent.This shouldn't be difficult.I'm making it more complicated than it is. I can paint the galaxy just off a glimpse. I can recreate a moment in time with a few brushstrokes and the right palette. Give me charcoal and thirty minutes, and I could sketch anyone, anywhere, just from a glance.Yet my canvas is still as untouched as it comes. An expanse of white so stark it mocks me.Maybe I should turn in the blank canvas. I bet I could convince Madame Dubois it's some philoso...

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“He Speaks For Me” by Danni D

Submitted to Contest #225

My red paints mimic blood on the wooden floor. It finds its way near the fallen paint brushes that lay still next to the empty easel, the canvas now feet away from it.Looking at the self portrait makes me ashamed in an empty room and I no longer feel worthy of my spilled and wasted turquoise, copper red, or midnight blue.A quiet room filled with chaos is all I’m left with and perhaps it’s the fumes of the paints getting to me but I can’t fall down and cry so instead I drop down to my knees with a thud and burst out into laughter instead.Two ...

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“The Self-Portrait of Andre Duvall” by Joseph Cillo Jr

Submitted to Contest #225

The portrait of Catherine Derosiers, though perfectly meeting her request, was not quite art, and that irked me. The work captured her innocence and would look fine hanging in her father’s living room, but something was missing. Something important. It needed a dagger.What an odd thought. I turned in my bed, but I could not shake the idea. A dagger? What about Catherine would warrant such an addition? But it had to be. My inner artist’s voice demanded it. It was the difference between a painting and a work ...

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